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Ricky Ponting reacts after dropping a catch - Source: Reuters -
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Ricky Ponting's resolve is about to be tested as never before as he faces the very real prospect of losing another Ashes series.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, losing the Ashes once could be considered a misfortune; losing them twice is another matter altogether.
As upbeat and positive as the Tasmanian may appear in public, there will be a little corner of his mind that he can never quite shut the curtains on. It will pick at the edges of his consciousness and fray his thoughts in the moments before sleep.
That little corner of his mind has a voice. In unguarded moments it will slip from behind the curtain and whisper into the captain's ear: "You could lose the Ashes again."
Somehow the world has turned on its axis since Australia put England to the sword two and a half years ago, winning a five-Test series 5-0. If there had been 10 Tests, it would have been 10-0, such was the home side's dominance. With it, Ponting laid the ghost of 2005.
Or so it seemed.
Now, almost unthinkably, Australia find themselves needing to to win at least one of the remaining three Tests or Ponting will be joining Billy Murdoch as the only captain to have lost the Ashes twice in England. The last time it happened, Queen Victoria was on the throne and Australia was not yet a federated country.
Ponting's job now is to somehow put Australia back into the mindset of the 2006-07 series, or more accurately, perhaps, to find a way of putting England back into the slough of self-doubt that plagued them in Australia.
It will be no easy task, not while Andrew Flintoff is ready to put body and soul on the line as he did on a famous final day at Lord's.
It was reminiscent of Bob Willis, his eyes blazing like fire, destroying Australia with a spell of 8-43 to seal victory at Headingley in 1981, in the match forever known as Botham's Test.
Kim Hughes's team, which, like Ponting's was apparently dominant after the first Test, never recovered.
It remains to be seen whether this Australian side has the competitive steel to turn things around.
Much hangs on the form of Mitchell Johnson, who had suddenly risen to be one of the game's superstars and now, just as swiftly, has looked more like a man who wants to go back to driving a plumber's van.
As a contest, this Ashes series already knocks the spots off the last one in Australia, which history will view as a series of curtain calls for Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer.
Unless Ponting can impose himself, history will view the 2009 series as a glorious encore for Freddie Flintoff.
And an unwanted epitaph for Ricky Ponting.
